Jacqueline deals with all aspects of family law, including divorce, judicial separation and nullity proceedings, as well as the rights of unmarried cohabitants, including same-sex couples and issues relating to children. She is known for her clear advisory style and her strategic approach.
She is particularly known for her experience in representing clients in complex financial disputes, including cases involving company and business issues, trusts and farming cases. She also advises on wealth protection in the form of prenuptial and post nuptial agreements.
Jacqueline’s work often has an international element, where issues of domicile and habitual residence can arise. She has worked with a multi-agency group and EC funded project, to improve the provision of services to survivors of domestic abuse.
She is a trained mediator.
Recent cases include:
- Ikimi v Ikimi [2001] EWCA Civ 873: acting for the petitioner wife in divorce proceedings based on the fact that she was habitually resident in England and Wales at the time the petition was issued, and so giving jurisdiction to the court to hear the petition. The court held that a person could be habitually resident in two places simultaneously.
- SC v YD [2014] EWCH 2446 (Fam): the first family case on the without prejudice rule. Acting for the respondent father in proceedings under Schedule 1 Children Act 1989 and Trusts of Land and Appointment of Trustees Act 1996. The father presented to the mother a document headed “Agreement between SC and YD”. He said that the document opened negotiations to avoid litigation and was therefore privileged, notwithstanding that it was not marked “without prejudice”. The mother said there was no pending or actual litigation and said it was admissible before the court. On appeal the court rejected the argument that all offers in the context of relationship breakdown should be privileged, for public policy reasons. On the facts the judge found in favour of the mother, so the document was admissible. However, the father subsequently defeated the TOLATA application.
- Acting for a respondent husband successfully challenging the jurisdiction of the English courts to hear a petition, and that his petition in the foreign jurisdiction should prevail.
- Acting for a respondent father to a Schedule 1 Children Act 1989 application, who had multiple business operations with cross company guarantees. Successfully arguing against a maximum assessment under the CMS and thereby avoiding the court having jurisdiction for top-up child maintenance.
- Acting for a husband’s relatives who had intervened in the husband’s divorce proceedings to protect partnership assets of circa £30m, in which they and the husband were interested.
- Acting for a husband and successfully arguing that assets of circa £20m that he had before the marriage should be ring-fenced and not available for sharing with the wife.
- Acting for a mother, successfully opposing an application for a joint residence order on the basis of the father’s controlling behaviour, such that the order was expressed as the child living with the mother and spending time with the father.
- Acting for a father and obtaining the discharge of a joint residence order and securing a new sole residence order in his favour.
- Acting for a father who lacks mental capacity due to a brain injury, and obtaining an order for staying contact for half of the week to replicate the time he previously enjoyed with the children, before his accident.
- Acting for a father who had not seen his children for two years, and obtaining an order for staying contact.